If Detroit wants to make the playoffs I hope Osgood doesnt start another game this year. Howard is in the top 5 in goals against and has been great all year. Having Osgood in goal is like putting 4 goals to the other team before the puck drops. Howard is the Wings only hope to actually make the playoffs and go anywhere once there in, sorry Ozzy but your done!

Ozzie has sucked, but Babcock dropped the ball by sitting him for an entire month.

Now Ozzie is out of rhythm and he sucks

Babcock needs to be held accountable for the whole goaltending fiasco this season. A poor bit of coaching on his part.

Osgood's been "out of rhythm" for two seasons now.

It's not Babcock.

In a 2005 study published by the journal Nature, researchers at Durham University in England concluded that, across a range of sports, we found that wearing red is consistently associated with a higher probability of winning. The researchers also suggested that red's effect may subconsciously intimidate opponents in athletic contests, especially when the athletes are equal in skill and strength.

Sitting your starting goalie for an entire month and then expecting him to play great all of a sudden is bad coaching.

Yeah, Ozzie has sucked, but Babcock hasn't been much better.

He's not expecting him to play great. He's expecting him to play well enough to win. He hasn't.

Edit: Why keep starting him? He hasn't earned his starts.

In a 2005 study published by the journal Nature, researchers at Durham University in England concluded that, across a range of sports, we found that wearing red is consistently associated with a higher probability of winning. The researchers also suggested that red's effect may subconsciously intimidate opponents in athletic contests, especially when the athletes are equal in skill and strength.

I don't think it matters. Howard isn't winning us games, Osgood isn't winning us games. The TEAM is playing badly. If you're going to go with Howard for the rest of the season, might as well trade Osgood. Osgood went from the Jennings winner to one of the worst goalies (statistically) in the past two seasons. He isn't going to be any better next season. They can surely get a good goalie in the off-season, throw 2-3 million at a guy, keep Howard as a co-starter.

Either you rotate the goalies, or you trade Osgood. I think it's utterly ridiculous to keep Osgood around just for the play-offs. Osgood won't play well next season, he's proven that. Get rid of him or give him 10-15 games down the next 30 game stretch. If he plays badly, Osgood has dug his own grave to retirement.

If Osgood isn't playing a significant number of games this season, why keep him around at all?

Howard gave up 5 goals last night too and Osgood faced far more offensive chances tonight than Howard last night. Not saying anyone should be happy about Osgood tonight as he certainly didn't help us win, but this loss was not on him at all. No goalie is going to win this game for us when the team plays as bad as they did.

But anyone who thinks its purely "Osgood sucks forever" and has nothing to do with sitting a professional goaltender for the past two months is a bit delusional. Osgood played like s*** tonite, but how great were the other players on the ice? I don't think Osgood is the guy anymore, but that is entirely Babcock's fault. Explaining it away as two terrible seasons when it was one bad season and one aborted season is silly. Look at the starts Osgood has gotten since the end of November, all of them were the second of back-to-backs with a team that hasn't played well, period, tired from the night before. How did Howard do in all of the first nights of the back-to-backs, the real night that HAS to be won? Losses.

Osgood is no longer "the guy", but that is because of Babcock entirely. Who was the last 36yo goaltender to sit a month at a pop and come in and play stellar for a team who can't win with great goaltending, let alone despite it? Anyone?

Howard gave up 5 goals last night too and Osgood faced far more offensive chances tonight than Howard last night. Not saying anyone should be happy about Osgood tonight as he certainly didn't help us win, but this loss was not on him at all. No goalie is going to win this game for us when the team plays as bad as they did.

Good point.

For me anyway, if the other team scores 2 goals I get real worried and wonder if we can even get a point.

Neither goalie can help us right now. We've only won like 2 of our last 7 games or so. Howard played most of those games.

This team just plain SUCKS.

Yep.

This is kinda what I feared as well. I really liked the way this team was looking for awhile when more guys were injured! We got a system going and seemed to have a more complete team with better lines and pairings than we've had recently. I just think there's a real lack of balance on this team in a lot of ways that isn't helping us at all as we get regulars back that are used to playing a certain way. Remember October when we were healthy and we had ABSOLUTELY NO CHEMISTRY AT ALL!?!?!?!?

That scares me more than missing the playoffs. Still not worried down the stretch about that, but as far as chemistry and gelling goes, I've got some worries. Our 2nd line is worthless and some and our 4th line has no bite at all. Our defense, I don't know. So strong for awhile, looking lost like mofo's latley...